Autumn is flying by for me, and it’s been a most enjoyable season at home and for traveling in the RV. The leaves are just beginning to turn, nighttime temperatures are flirting with the freezing mark but not yet giving in, regular fall activities returned, and my favorite farmer’s market vendor has closed for the season after another good run this year. This is by far my favorite season of the year, and we now consider it to be our “summer,” since it is our preferred season for travel and outdoor fun now.

Since returning from our week-long vacation to the Enchanted Circle area in early September, we’ve made three more shorter trips in the RV, all to state parks closer to home. We’ve also enjoyed some nice times right here at home, including our annual visit to the fair and enjoying the great food there on opening night, none of which was on my diet, but hey, it’s a tradition… right?

We always enjoy our yearly visit to the fair

At the fair, we once again dined at the same place I used to take my mom for lunch each year, a charitable organization’s restaurant that I’ve always enjoyed supporting and one that also serves reliably good food. I guess I will always have my mom on my mind every time I go to the fair now, remembering how much she enjoying it, and that’s ok. Those are good memories, but it still gets to me each time I go now.

In late September, Hubby and I returned to Lake Brownwood State Park with another couple who also joined us in their RV for four days and three nights, the same couple we met at Caprock Canyons State Park in August on a weekend that was cooler than normal. It was our first time to visit Lake Brownwood in September, and we managed to get adjacent sites with awesome lake views in the Council Bluff campground.

View of Lake Brownwood from Texas Oak hiking trail… one of favorite trails

We enjoyed acquainting our friends with the park, and we also had fun hiking and geocaching together, dining outside in the evenings, watching college football on Saturday evening outside on their RV television and driving into Brownwood to dine at one of our all time favorite places to eat, Underwood’s BBQ.

We also celebrated Hubby’s birthday with our traditional family birthday cake, a Texas chocolate sheet cake that I made, and we even made him blow out candles. Once again, I ate that yummy cake, even though it wasn’t on my diet, a most familiar tale this fall.

View from our campsite at Lake Brownwood State Park. We enjoyed a nice campfire here on Friday night with our friends.

In late October, we made a quick weekend trip to Lake Colorado City State Park to just get away and relax. Hubby’s nephew surprised us and met us there in his big, new pop-up camper on Saturday afternoon. The guys had fun checking everything out on it a little more, and we all enjoyed a great visit around the campfire together on Saturday night and even made Nutella s’mores. (Yes, we used Nutella instead of chocolate bars!) We had the campground mostly to ourselves, which was so nice for a peaceful weekend away.

View from our front door at our pull-thru site at Lake Colorado City State ParkThe site we scoped out for Hubby’s nephew. He wanted a site that was level and had a little shade, if possible, and he was quite happy with this one.Another view of his site – lots of room and green grassBig Red was waiting patiently on us in the RV as we were getting ready to leave on Sunday

Last week, Lake Colorado City finally received some significant rains, and the lake is now up at least eight feet since we were there. We have never seen this lake with that much water in it because we started traveling by RV during the big drought in 2011. This lake was hit hard and has been very slow in recovering. Hopefully, it’s made some nice progress now, and I’m anxious to return soon to see it.

Our most recent long-weekend trip took us to Palo Duro Canyon State Park in early November for three days and nights. We’ve visited this well-known state park off and on for most of our lives, but this particular trip was by far our best one to date.

We enjoyed the gorgeous scenery at Palo Duro Canyon State Park once again, as well as some great weather and fog

I plan to write a separate post soon to share more about that trip and some of the pictures I took. Palo Duro Canyon State Park just keeps getting better and better, especially since it was named the top state park in the nation a couple of years ago, and I’ll try to share more soon about the most recent improvements and expansions in the park, which are newsworthy, especially to campers!

The state park system has definitely spent some money on this great park in recent years to improve the roads and add campsites, both of which were sorely needed. Now, if they could just figure out a way to make that 10% grade road going down into the canyon not so steep and narrow! 😉

Since our last trip, we have been cleaning and sprucing up the RV as we begin to transition it for colder weather camping. Hubby wanted to do some exterior caulking, and I opted to rent a Rug Doctor and clean the carpet while the weather was nice.

Even though we began winterizing in late October at our campsites before heading home, we also started switching out some supplies to prepare for winter camping… loading our heated water hose, electric blankets for us and a guest, extra blankets for us and the dogs’ beds and our good space heater with a thermostat. Right now, though, the weather is still very nice and looks to stay that way, at least for the near future. We’re hoping it stays that way next week for Thanksgiving, too.

In my previous posts, I’ve shared some of our adventures in the Enchanted Circle area of New Mexico. Most of these were places that we visited on day trips away from our RV base camp at Angel Fire, but today, I want to share about our fun time in Angel Fire. I previously shared about our visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is located just outside Angel Fire, too.

New Mexico’s Famous Enchanted Circle

We stayed six days and five nights at Angel Fire RV Resort, which is part of Angel Fire Resort properties. This year-round RV park opened in May 2015, and it sits a few miles away from town, just off Highway 64. We were referred to this park by another RV friend who was quite impressed by it on a previous trip, and we opted to stay here because it was also centrally located for day trips to Taos, Eagle Nest and Red River.

The best option for us to drive to the area was Highway 64 from Cimarron, and the pass between Cimarron and Eagle Nest was very do-able in the RV, although *very* crowded with traffic on Labor Day with many people leaving the Enchanted Circle area to go home.

Angel Fire RV Resort – one of the pretty paths in the park

Angel Fire RV Resort guests are granted full access to all resort amenities, no matter where they are located in the area.

Angel Fire Resort Hotel at the ski area. RV Resort guests are permitted to use all resort facilities, even at the hotel.

Hubby played golf at the resort on our first day in the area and received a discount, and we were also given two free passes to ride the chairlift to the top of the ski mountain, compliments of the resort, worth $24. It’s definitely worth taking these free and discounted items into account when deciding where to park the RV in this area.

Gorgeous flowers were all around the RV park, and we felt that we were camping in a flower garden.

RVs older than ten years must be pre-approved to stay at Angel Fire RV Resort. Since ours is more than ten years old, I sent a few photos to the RV resort office by email, and we were immediately approved for our stay. I will also share that this is definitely the most expensive RV park we have ever stayed in at about $70 per night, but after our awesome experience there, we would do it again in a heartbeat for a special vacation week such as this. If we took a nice vacation, stayed in a hotel and boarded the dogs, we would spend almost $60 per night just on boarding, so being able to bring them along on a nice vacation helped to justify this nightly rate. Plus, we had them along for the fun! After all, we are dog people.

We truly loved the spectacular views from the park, especially on the surreal foggy mornings we enjoyed our first few days there.

All the RV park amenities can be found on their website. What we enjoyed the most was the pad site itself (long and level), nice views of the area, gated security (since it is just off a busy road), outdoor hot tub, gorgeous landscaping everywhere in the park and the big, grassy “Bark Park” to let our dogs run off-leash a few times each day, which was a lot of fun for all of us.

While this is already a beautiful RV park with amazing landscaping and flowers, it’s going to be even more beautiful in a few years as the trees grow taller. There are a lot of trees in the park, and it should be a stunning place, for sure.

View of Angel Fire Ski Area from our RV site, slightly zoomed inEvenings were just beautiful as the sun set with a mostly unobstructed view of the brilliant colors

The large conference center on property is really nice. It also houses another camper restroom/shower facility with an outside entrance. This was the closest restroom/shower facility for us, and we opted to shower there on two days, just because it was so very nice! Just outside the center, we also enjoyed simply rocking in the nice wooden rockers in the evening after the campfire was lit.

Conference center in the RV park for gatherings and concerts

To say the pups were happy at the “Bark Park” is an understatement! Next time, I will bring their Frisbee along. Having this nice dog park made us realize how much we wish other RV parks would consider adding one, too.

On the food front, there is a nice, well-stocked grocery store in Angel Fire, which is good to know since we discovered that there are only a few restaurants in the area. On the morning we departed for home, we also filled the RV with gas at a pump at the grocery store, too.

We dined out twice in Angel Fire and certainly enjoyed our food both times. We enjoyed a good pizza at Angel Fired Pizzafor lunch. This restaurant is located on the second floor of a shopping center next to the grocery store, and we had a great view of the ski mountain as we dined. We also ate breakfast at The Bakery and Café at Angel Fire on our last full day in the area, and it was so good! I had a huge breakfast burrito, and it was almost more than I could eat, but somehow, I managed to eat the whole thing. They are not open for dinner, just breakfast and lunch.

Trails in the Angel Fire area allow dogs, something that is actually a bit rare for many areas in New Mexico.

Deer Trail in Angel FireTrailhead in Angel Fire

We really enjoyed hiking one of the resort trails with the dogs one cool morning, and this trailhead is located just behind the Angel Fire Visitor’s Center in town.

Hiking on a clear, cool morning with the dogs

The resort golf course is very pretty and is located just outside town. Hubby enjoyed playing the course, even though some brief rain showers interrupted play for a bit.

Angel Fire Country ClubDriving range

The resort lake, which is just past the golf course, is also a pretty place to visit, picnic, fish or rent a paddle boat.

Monte Verde Lake – Angel Fire Resort

One of the highlights of our trip was using our complimentary tickets from the resort and riding the chair lift to the top of the ski area. In years gone by, we brought our kids skiing here on a few occasions with other families from our church, so it was a bit surreal to ride the chairlift with no snow on the ground below us. It was even more awesome to ride it back down with the fabulous views of Angel Fire below us, growing closer and closer as we approached the base of the lift. Truly, the views riding back down were just fabulous!

On the Friday we visited, there were several cyclists riding the chair lift up with their special bikes to ride the trails back to the bottom, and I admit that it looked like a lot of fun, too. The trails are rated by difficulty, just like the ski trails in winter. We could probably ride the green trails and may have to give this a try before we get much older. If we opt to do that, we will rent our bikes and other gear at one of the local shops nearby.

We dined at the outdoor grill at the top of the mountain for lunch. On the day we were there is was not too crowded, so it was a pleasant experience for us with great views.

View of Eagle Nest Lake and the town of Eagle Nest from the top of the ski mountainLunch cooked outside at the top of the mountain made for a great dining experience

At the top of the mountain resides an 18-hole disc golf course. We walked over to the first two holes after lunch, and it looks like a lot of fun. Just be aware that the altitude might take a bit to get used to. I started to feel pretty lightheaded while we were there, so we decided to forego any further exploration and head back down the mountain.

Map of the 18 hole disc golf course at the top of the mountainLook at the rough on this Frisbee golf course!

The resort also offers a zip line at the top of the mountain for those inclined to even more adventure. I’m not sure I’m ready for something like this, but I might could be talked into it, too.

Zip Line at Angel Fire Ski Resort – It’s straight down the mountain from here!

We also made a quick afternoon drive to check out Coyote Creek State Park to the south of Angel Fire. This state park is remote, very pretty and has some hookups, but I doubt we ever take our RV there, since RVs are not permitted on the road between the park and Angel Fire… and for good reason. Vehicles over ten feet are not permitted on this road that is quite narrow in one stretch. Visitors to this state park must drive their RVs in from the south instead.

Entrance to Coyote Creek State Park, south of Angel FireA few RV sites on the river at Coyote Creek State Park

The drive to and from the state park was beautiful on a narrow and winding road through the tall trees, and we even stopped at one pullout to let the dogs get in the creek.

Old abandoned log cabins on our drive

Girly Girl jumped right in the water, but Big Red wanted none of it. Fortunately, we brought along some old towels on the drive. Carry old towels is something we actually do most of the time when on vacation, especially when bringing the dogs with us.

Big Red wouldn’t get in the waterGirly Girl has always loved playing in the water and jumped right in

We had a great time re-visiting this area after many years and look forward to returning again in the future. Our experience with Angel Fire RV Resort was so good that I suspect we will continue to base camp there, even if we stop over at Cimarron Canyon State Park for a night or two and maybe a night at Eagle Nest Lake State Park on the way next time. I also hope to spend a little more time in Taos and Red River next time, if possible, especially Taos.

We didn’t actually drive the Enchanted Circle highway between Taos and Questa, and that was our plan for this trip due to time constraints. On a future trip, we hope to complete the circle and visit that area, too.

I have one more post to share to complete my posts on this great trip, sharing some sights we saw on our drive to this area, especially Capulin Volcano National Monument in northern New Mexico. Look for that one soon!

For more good, detailed information on visiting the Enchanted Circle, please check out the article below.

We enjoyed a few days at Lake Brownwood State Park just before Easter once again. Springtime is such a great time to visit this lovely park, and for the first time since we began visiting here is early 2012, the lake was completely full! This was also our yearly pilgrimage to see our beautiful Texas bluebonnets once again. A trip to see the bluebonnets in spring holds a special place in my heart, dating back to my childhood days with my family when we would make a trip to another lake in central Texas in the spring, often during this very same week when we had a break from school for Easter.

Here are two views of the same spot at Lake Brownwood in the day use area. The first photo is from last year at this same time, and the second photo is from last week.

20152016

While we certainly missed all of those beautiful bluebonnets that we saw last year, it was such a treat to finally see this beautiful lake completely full with green grass and trees all around. The lake actually filled up shortly after our visit last year after significant rains came to much of the state to finally end the drought that began in 2011, but this was our first time back to the lake since the rains came.

There are several campgrounds in the park, and we always enjoy the Council Bluff campground with the full hookups, nice shady sites, great views of the lake and easy access to some nice trails afforded there. In fact, the overlook in this campground is one of my favorite places in the entire park, especially at sunset.

Council Bluff overlook, about a minute walk from our campsiteView from Council Bluff overlookCouncil Bluff overlookCouncil Bluff campground in the morningArea behind our campsite in Council Bluff where we saw some wild turkeysSunset view from Council Bluff overlook

I captured a few photos of some pretty birds in the campground, including my first photos of our state bird of Texas, the mockingbird, which we do not see very often in our part of the state, unfortunately. These pretty birds have a beautiful wingspan, too.

Mockingbird, the state bird of TexasNorthern CardinalMockingbird

The Willow Point campground, which sits right on the lake, is another beautiful place to camp in the park, offering water and electric sites with easy lake access. The gorgeous day use area also sits next to this campground, and a nice fishing pier and boat ramp is within an easy walk. We actually decided to return to the park midweek at some point and camp in Willow Point to take full advantage of the lake access, too.

Swimming spot at the day use areaLovely day use areaA nice campsite in Willow Point campgroundLakeside campsites in Willow Point camproundWillow Point campgroundPatch of bluebonnets near the day use areaBeautiful bluebonnet

Lake Brownwood State Park is one of 29 CCC Legacy Parks in the Texas State Park system, and the most impressive site in the park is the historic lodge, built by the CCC during the Great Depression. Hubby’s father was part of a CCC group in the hill country in that time, so all of the CCC facilities throughout the state hold a special place in our hearts, for sure.

I always enjoy seeing this beautiful and impressive building on each trip, and each year on Easter Sunday, a sunrise service is held here at a gorgeous overlook that has a great view of the lake as the sun shines its first golden rays over the lake.

Historic CCC lodgeMonument at the historic lodgeBig patio behind the historic lodgeBeautiful overlook area near the historic lodgeSunrise service is held in this beautiful spot every Easter morning.

Of course, a visit to this area is not complete without enjoying a meal at a truly iconic restaurant in the town of Brownwood, which is 22 miles south of the park. Underwood’s Cafeteria is not to be missed when in this area, and you can’t miss it when driving through town with those large signs. We opted to dine here at lunch on Thursday before the holiday crowds came to the area, which was a good plan. Underwood’s Cafeteria has been in business for 70 years as of this year and is still going strong with some of the best BBQ anywhere at a fair price.

We had a great, relaxing trip back to this area, and even the dogs had a great time, I think. We took the car along on this trip instead of the motorcycle, as the weather was a bit cooler than on previous trips, so we took them with us on some nice drives here for the first time. Easy access to some of our favorite hiking trails from our campsite also allowed us to take them hiking every day, and we especially enjoyed hiking the Texas Oak Trail above the lake at sunset each day.

Big Red loves to look out the window at our fellow campers.Girly Girl enjoying a morning nap in the sunshine in the RV.